The craft of preserving, stuffing, and mounting animal skins to create realistic-looking lifelike displays for museums or decoration.
From Greek 'taxis' (arrangement) and 'derma' (skin), literally 'skin arrangement.' The term was coined in the late 1800s as the practice formalized into an art and science.
Taxidermy became an obsession in Victorian times when people wanted nature in their homes—museums competed to have the most realistic animals, leading to incredible artistic skill and some hilariously bad attempts that now look comical!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.